Disclosed herein are exemplary embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for performing content-adaptive deblocking to improve the visual quality of video images compressed using block-based motion-predictive video coding. For instance, in certain embodiments of the disclosed technology, edge information is obtained using global orientation energy edge detection (“OEED”) techniques on an initially deblocked image. OEED detection can provide a robust partition of local directional features (“LDFs”). For a local directional feature detected in the partition, a directional deblocking filter having an orientation corresponding to the orientation of the LDF can be used. The selected filter can have a filter orientation and activation thresholds that better preserve image details while reducing blocking artifacts. In certain embodiments, for a consecutive non-LDF region, extra smoothing can be imposed to suppress the visually severe blocking artifacts.
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2. The method of claim 1, wherein the reconstructing, the buffering, the applying, the determining, the selecting, and the selectively applying are performed in a motion compensation loop of the video decoder.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selectively applying the selected filter includes evaluating one or more application thresholds such that the selected filter is applied at the edge locations determined based at least in part on the analysis of pixel values of the block.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising repeating the determining, the selecting, and the selectively applying for each of one or more other blocks.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the two or more candidate filters is a smoothing filter configured to remove discontinuity artifacts while preserving real edges.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the selectively applying the selected filter includes evaluating, using the edge locations determined based at least in part on the analysis of pixel values of the block, whether or not to apply the selected filter.
13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein the selectively applying the selected filter includes evaluating, using the edge locations determined based at least in part on the analysis of pixel values of the block, whether or not to apply the selected filter.
15. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the reconstructing, the buffering, the applying, the determining, the selecting, and the selectively applying are performed in a motion compensation loop of the video encoder.
16. The computer system of claim 14, further comprising repeating the determining, the selecting, and the selectively applying for each of one or more other blocks.
18. The computer system of claim 14, wherein at least one of the two or more candidate filters is a smoothing filter configured to remove discontinuity artifacts while preserving real edges.
19. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the selectively applying the selected filter includes evaluating, using the edge locations determined based at least in part on the analysis of pixel values of the block, whether or not to apply the selected filter.
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March 1, 2021
December 13, 2022
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